


Proclaim a Pardon

by 221b_hound



Series: Star-crossed [11]
Category: Richard III - Shakespeare, Sherlock (TV), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Comfort Sex, Dreamhusbands, Forgiveness, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Reincarnation, Richard III reburied, Shakespearean Language, burial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 07:05:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4253976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bones of long-dead Richard III are being reinterred at Leicester Cathedral. All the players in this strange drama - Richard and John, Khan and Sherlock, Elizabeth Woodville and Mycroft Holmes - each have a reaction to the ceremony, the respectful burial of a much-feared and bloody tyrant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Proclaim a Pardon

**Author's Note:**

> Before the story notes: aranel_parmadil is podficcing this entire series!! She has started with [ Well Met](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4247730) and will continue to the end of the series - which is about two stories away. :)
> 
> The story was inspired by the recent ceremony to rebury Richard's remains at Leicester Cathedral. Many people asked what my Richard/Khan thought of it. I pulled together some replies I made and fleshed it out.
> 
> It's good to remind everyone now that the Richard of these stories is not history's Richard, but Shakespeare's (which is why he speaks in Elizabethan cadances and not medieval ones, and why his reign is portrayed so brutally).
> 
> The title of this story is from RIchmond's speech at the end of Shakespeare's Richard III:
> 
> _RICHMOND_  
>  Inter their bodies as becomes their births:  
> Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled  
> That in submission will return to us:  
> And then, as we have ta'en the sacrament,  
> We will unite the white rose and the red. 
> 
>  
> 
> See the end notes for other references and links relevant to the story.

It was not by chance that John left the news on, showing that strange, solemn parade that escorted the bones of a past life into a new grave. John Watson was curious, his interest stirred by a deeper curiosity. His soul that once bore the name of Richard had been near the surface much of late, thanks to the medicines and wiles of Sherlock’s brother Mycroft – who was in turn the current incarnation of the much-suffering soul of Elizabeth Woodville.

They had parted, Richard and John both charged with the defence of Sherlock-who-was-Khan to his last breath: an oath that John-and-Richard swore willingly, and with the deepest conviction.

And now here were his ancient kingly bones, uncovered from an unsanctified burial o’erlaid with centuries of derision and more recent concrete. Already those bent and scarred remnants had been carried with great ceremony from Fenn Lane Farm, near where he died, through Market Bosworth and Bow Bridge and finally to Leicester Cathedral, where they had lain in state for the people to acknowledge.

The service was full of respect and holy men, and of noble descendants of his enemies (he could not recall, in truth, any friends he may have had, except the one, the only, who was not in that crowded church). The service was full too of pomp and poetry.

A voice that was _like_ but was _not_ John’s voice, made murmur in John’s mind.

_I am bones and dust and can no longer render them bloody harm, and thus they show me respect, those that no longer fear me. Pox on them all. Though I will spare kindness for the tall fellow, my distant cousin, who orates that poetical farewell. His noble brow is the like of my love's, and I find it not in my heart to be churlish with him._

One line alone in that poem stayed with him, however; struck him with both pride and grief: _Grant me the carving of my name._

Oh, to be seen for himself, at last, not more nor less than Richard. Villain and tyrant, yes, but other Richards too. The Richards he had been before rage and despair and spite and grief had overtaken him and made him a devil with blood in his teeth and a heart hedged hard-about with armour and loss. The Richards after, too.

Only one truly knew all the Richards who had lived and died and lived again – the repentant Richard, the Richard who knew at last what it was to love and be loved. The Richard he was when he was with his Khan.

“Do you have to watch this?”

John turned to see Sherlock scowling at the screen, as though it grievously wounded him to see it.

“Not really. I’m just… it’s not every day you get to watch your own burial.”

“ _It’s not your burial_ ,” snarled Sherlock.

John instantly extinguished the screen and went to his love, to cup the scowling face in his two hands and to look into those suffering winter-pale eyes with those of gold-flecked blue.

“No. It’s not my burial. I’m here. I’m right here.”

Sherlock was half way to rolling his eyes in scathing ‘that’s obvious’ comment, but John soft-press’d his lips to his love’s, and instead Sherlock melted into the kiss. He wound his long arms around John’s waist and tugged him close and closer still. Gentle kisses became more impassioned, and then travelled with wandering intent over John’s jaw and cheek, behind his ear and into the warm and welcoming crook of his neck.

John stretched so that Sherlock’s teeth could find and make their mark on him, and held his love tight. He felt the tremor in that slender body and stroked his fingers down the curling spine.

“All is well,” murmured John. His cadences yet were limned with the cadences of that older self, which had spent three weeks suspended at the surface of John Watson’s mind, until the King and Doctor-soldier had become for a time blended. Richard was subsiding, but he clung like a ghost to John’s tongue and thoughts.

Sherlock responded protectively, his Khan-self well buried but swirling, too, beneath his skin. He was less troubled than he may once have been, however. All that mattered was that his Prince, his heart, his Richard, his John, was restored to him, hale and whole.

But that funeral procession – that lead coffin filled with twisted and blade-scored bones – brought Sherlock grief that was Khan’s grief too, and replayed for him fears that had haunted him all through his search for John, while John was in his brother Mycroft’s prison.

“They were not content to kill him,” said Sherlock with a shaking breath against John’s skin, “They had to be cruel. The blows they inflicted on his poor dead body...”

_I was deserving of my fate…_

“Shh, love, shhh. It was centuries ago. It’s over, it’s done.” John nuzzled Sherlock’s temple and kissed his cheeks. He brushed his thumbs over Sherlock’s cheekbones and his jaw, and kissed and nuzzled some more, until Sherlock’s hands sought closer closeness with John’s skin, fingertips sliding under John’s shirt, and down his jeans, and inside his pants. John in turn pressed hard his hardness against Sherlock, and explored that lean and beautiful body with his sturdy, loving hands and soon, soon, soon they were both naked and hot and moving languid yet with purpose on their bed.

The tortured past was dead and reburied, and they were now alive, now here, now together, with the love and trust and hope of centuries burning eternal in their souls. They lit each other up, each a phoenix, each the turtledove, _two distincts, division none_ , until their voices, their own John and Sherlock voices, rose up in comingled cries of bliss.

*

Mycroft Holmes attended the ceremony and could not say why. Or rather, he would not tell himself why. Unsettled still with the knowledge of that suffering queen, Elizabeth Woodville, who somehow lived in a soul he’d always denied he had, Mycroft had been compelled to come.

**_See how his body is but bones. He is dead. He is centuries dead._ **

_The Richard who slew my babes and my husband and my brother is dead. The villain who would have ruined and slain my daughter, dead. His twisted bones lie encased in lead and he cannot harm me any more. And yet he lives, in the soul of that John Watson._

**_And yet John Watson is not Richard Plantagenet. Any more than Mycroft Holmes is Elizabeth Woodville. We are and are not the same. John will protect my brother with his life. He has done so already. He will always do so._ **

_True. Richard is no longer Richard. Elizabeth is no longer Elizabeth **.** Whatever we were, whatever echoes remain, we are new things now._

**_This is absurd. There is no such thing as reincarnation. There is no such thing as a soul._ **

_And yet, and yet, and yet. Explain what you saw, what you felt, what was said and done. Explain it. Once you have eliminated the impossible…_

**_Oh, don’t you start._ **

_Why did we come?_

**_To see for ourselves that Richard Plantagenet is nothing but a corpse. Not even a whole one. Just pitiful, pitiable bones._ **

_So we pity him now?_

**_We… perhaps._ **

_And do we forgive him?_

**_Richard is penitent. John is not to blame._ **

The other voice in his mind fell silent, and then in a whisper, she said to him: _The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance. He being penitent, let our rage and our revenge extend not a breath further. Yet be vigilant._

**_Oh, vigilance is my watchword._ **

_I long to be free of fear,_ said that other voice after a handful of heartbeats’ silence.

Mycroft, who understood despite scorning to understand, removed himself from the Cathedral and returned to London.

Doctor John Watson would stand between Sherlock and any outrageous fortune that came his way. Mycroft was certain of it. And as long as John was Sherlock’s sword and shield, as promised, then Richard, he decided, was pardoned.

And yet, Mycroft would maintain his vigilance. He no longer knew how to be otherwise.

*

In the dreaming glade, while John and Sherlock slept all entwined, Richard and Khan stood naked in their brook. Khan’s arms around his Richard held him warm and steady as the water tumbled over and between legs and hips and backsides and bellies. Richard kissed Khan’s broad chest, tickling the pale flesh with his beard.

Khan bent to press his lips to Richard’s ear.

"They give your bones a respectful place to rest at last, my prince, whether you believe it deserved or no."

Richard bumped his nose against Khan’s sternum. "I desire no resting place but with thee, my Khan, for tis only with thee that my soul finds peace and ease."

Khan placed his hands firm under Richard’s buttocks and pulled him up and close, to kiss his mouth and feel his Prince’s hard, passionate heat against his belly. Richard buried one hand in Khan’s dark hair and hitched his legs over Khan’s hips, so that Khan had to hold his love intimate against his skin.

“Grieve not for my death,” Richard murmured, “For in dying, I was free to become a better man than I had been. In the lives that followed, I made myself worthy to reclaim thee, beloved.”

“And I for thee,” agreed Khan, but he was disgruntled yet, “Though I would still have more than words with those geneticists who claim you are not of the kingly line.”

Richard drew back from his most important business of bite-sucking a loving bruise into Khan’s pale shoulder. He nipped playfully instead at Khan’s jaw.

“It is of no matter to me, then or now,” he said, blue eyes crinkling in a knowing smile. "There is naught of breeding legitimacy to a throne, whether or no that all-seeing eye of science doth proclaim it so.”

Khan raised an eyebrow at his Prince, who promptly kiss-nipped Khan’s full lower lip, and hitched his legs more tightly about his waist.

“I myself declared my nephews bastards and my word was law, more proof to those that feared me than the echo of my brother's eyes and mouth in the features of those babes,” Richard explained. “If I am a bastard, yet I was a royal one, and took what I will, lineage or no, and thus did Henry depose a tyrant and gain a crown. Twas always nought but the power of will and a silver tongue that could gather minds and voices to buttress up a groundless claim. In truth, none but our mothers know who our fathers be." Richard followed up his nipping kisses with a softer-lipp’d adulation of that mouth.

"My father and mother both were but cells, well documented, and my creation not one of passion nor indiscretion, but of cold science,” said Khan thoughtfully, when he and Richard next rested from the rough-tender embrace of their mouths. “My maker aimed to create a perfect beast."

Richard smiled and this time bumped his nose with Khan’s. "Your maker made you perfect, aye love, and motherless and fatherless, and so you are the sole heir of the universe whole, its most shining star. The firmament and all the worlds and stars therein are the heralds of your parentage."

Khan soft-smiled, and carried his Richard to the banks of the brook, and there he laid his prince in the sweet grass and straddled him, and sank down upon Richard’s aching prick. He suckled on the fingers of Richard’s withered right hand while Richard’s left worked Khan’s own cock, and he rode his eternal beloved to mutual exquisite climax.

“You are the sun, and I was born for thee,” whispered Khan after, as they curled and cuddled in one another’s arms.

“As thou art my world and all heavens unto me,” said Richard, sighing-happy, and the fate of his bones and of all those who now praised where once grew curses were nothing to him.

His soul lived, and was loved, and _could_ love, as did his Khan’s, and between them love did shine, and either was the other's _mine_.

**Author's Note:**

> Here is [Carol Anne Duffy's poem Richard](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/26/richard-iii-by-carol-ann-duffy) which was read in fact by Benedict Cumberbatch at the reinterment, and he is, apparently, actually a decendant of Richard's.
> 
> Elizabeth's lines about 'the rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance' are adapted from Prospero's lines in The Tempest.
> 
> I've also referenced lines from Shakespeare's poem, [the Phoenix and the Turtle](http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2012/sep/17/poem-of-the-week-william-shakespeare), though in a happier context.
> 
> [Here too is the article where it was suggested that DNA evidence from Richard's recovered body showed he was a bastard](http://history-behind-game-of-thrones.com/warofroses/richard-iii-dna-adultery) and had no right to the throne.
> 
> I've put together [ some Star Crossed stuff, including 'Prince of my Heart'](http://www.redbubble.com/people/narrelleharris/collections/402314-star-crossed).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Proclaim a Pardon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4812185) by [aranel_parmadil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aranel_parmadil/pseuds/aranel_parmadil)




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